


Three Words

by littlemissy106



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angels, Angst, Car Accidents, Demons, First Kiss, M/M, Near Death Experience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 14:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemissy106/pseuds/littlemissy106
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: What if three words was the difference between life and death, heaven and hell?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Words

Niall sighed and leaned against the foggy car window. As the car drove smoothly through the London streets his eyes threatened to close. He was exhausted. It had been a rough couple of months, with the album release and the beginning of the new tour. Along with the increase in their popularity came the typical increase in hate and lately it had been wearing Niall thin, grating on his nerves and lingering at the back of his mind. 

As if that wasn’t enough, something had been going on between Niall and his band mate, Liam. They had always been close, ever since x-factor, but recently it had grown to a new level. Touches lingered on backs, looks burned with emotion, hands inevitably found themselves intertwined. 

It had taken weeks for Niall to admit to himself that his feelings for Liam were no longer just platonic, no longer just best friends, but more then that.  
Once he had admitted it to himself he had tried to talk to Liam about it. He had gotten one sentence in,” Hey Liam, I was wondering if we could talk?” Before Liam had shot up and hurried away, claiming that he had an appointment with management, which was complete bull, because they had just had a meeting that morning.

After that Liam avoided Niall, trading rooms with Zayn so that he had the single room and making sure that when they walked as a group one of the other boys was between himself and Niall. Niall had been going crazy trying to understand why Liam was acting so…angry. To be honest he was a little hurt by Liam’s actions. He had even taken to letting a few tears slip out while he was taking a shower, letting the water hide the tears.

When Liam had announced that night that he was going to the grocery story Niall had jumped at the opportunity to finally get Liam alone so that they could talk. Liam had looked slightly alarmed and angry, but he couldn’t very well say no in front of the other guys, so they clambered into Liam’s Audi.

Liam had steadfastly refused to even look at Niall, and only replied to Niall’s questions with short, choppy answers. As the minutes ticked away awkwardly Niall had slowly lost the courage to continue the conversation, so they had fallen into silence. By the time that they were on their way home with organic milk, organic peppers, and organic oranges (Liam) and Rocky Road ice cream (Niall) both of them were stiff with tension.

The cool glass felt good against Niall’s warm cheek. He bit his lip and took a deep, shaky breath that sounded much more like a sob then he had meant it to. He was shocked when a warm hand came down and curled around his shaking fingers. He looked up to find Liam nervously glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. He looked like he wanted to say something, but his mouth tightened instead and he turned his eyes back to the road.

“Li – “ Niall tried, tightening his grip on the boy’s hand.

“Don’t Niall, just don’t.”

Niall recoiled from the sharp words and was about to tell Liam to kindly go to hell when he was stopped by two blinding white lights and a cacophony of shrieking medal and burning rubber.  
\---------------------------------------------

Niall’s head felt hot and fuzzy, but his body was ice cold. He felt like goose bumps should have been running up his arms, but strangely he felt nothing. Nothing but cold, dead weight.

He slowly blinked his eyes, trying to figure out what had happened. He was met with the image of Liam hovering over him. His brown eyes lit up when he saw Niall’s eyes open.

“Niall! Oh thank God. Just hold on, the paramedics are almost here,” he said softly. Liam’s hair was a mess and his eyes were puffy and red, as if he had been crying. There was a large bruise beginning to develop along his jaw and his white shirt was rumpled and covered in small red dots. 

Red dots. As in. Blood.

Niall’s eyes widened slightly at that realization and he frantically examined Liam with his eyes, looking for the source of the bleeding. It wasn’t until his eyes wandered down Liam’s arms to see his hands pressing down on a bundle of cloth that was pressed up against Niall’s stomach that he realized that Liam wasn’t the one bleeding. The cloth had once been bright yellow (Niall suspected that it was Liam’s jacket, the one he had been wearing before…whatever had happened….) but a dark purple stain was quickly soaking through the material.

He rolled his head to the side, unable to watch any longer as he bled into Liam’s jacket. 

The sight that met his eyes was almost worse. Liam’s bright silver Audi sat at the side of the road, or maybe lay was a better word, because the little car was on its side. The passenger side of the car was in the air, the metal crumpled and twisted, and the door hung open like a gaping wound. The front of the car was smoking slightly and the ground around it was covered in broken glass. Next to the Audi was a red truck with a dented and crushed hood. Niall thought he could see a figure sitting in the driver seat, but it was so dark that he couldn’t be sure.

So.

A car accident.

He was going to die in a fucking car accident.

Fuck. Shit. Hell. Shit. Fuck. Fuck. Did he say fuck yet?

He turned back to Liam with tears in his eyes. The numb feeling was starting to leave his body slowly and in its place was a jagged, pulsing, burning pain. He could feel his blood pounding against the pressure of Liam’s hands on his abdomen, as if it wanted to leave his body, slide down his side and form a river across the concrete, and Liam was the only thing stopping it, the only thing holding him together.

He must have made some type of noise, maybe a whimper or groan, he wasn’t sure, because suddenly Liam leaned forward. He managed to press his lips against Niall’s forehead, while keeping his hands holding down the jacket. He pulled back and Niall’s eyes caught on the smear of blood that now ran across Liam’s chin. Liam didn’t say anything for a moment. He looked like he was trying to keep himself from crying, but he eventually whispered, “I’m so sorry Ni. This is my fault. You were right. We do need to talk..but…but not here, not now okay? Later, we’ll go get a beer and…just figure things out okay.”

Niall choked back a sob at that because A) Liam didn’t even drink, so to suggest getting a beer meant he was trying to make Niall happy and B) Niall wasn’t so sure that there was going to be later, and that thought tore at him. Finally he had a chance with Liam (or maybe he didn’t, but he was dying and he figured he could cut himself some slack now) and he was never going to know if it would have worked out, never know how Liam felt about him. 

Niall’s mind was starting to feel extremely slow and laggy. His breathing felt like it was being dragged out of him and the pain was making him want to hide away, to do anything to make it stop. He could feel his eyes start to droop, but before he could fall asleep there was something that he had to say.  
His body shuddered as he spoke the words that had been haunting him for the past month. “Love you Liam.”  
\-------------------------

The next time Niall woke up he fully expected to be faced with golden gates, fluffy clouds, and trumpeting angels, or, if he was particularly unlucky, maybe just a field of boiling lava echoing with screams. 

What he didn’t expect was to wake up in a bed feeling perfectly fine. 

The first thing that he noticed about the room was that everything was white. White walls, white floor, white sheets. He swung his legs out of bed and slowly stood, stretching and enjoying the fact that he was in fact standing up, alive and well. 

Unfortunately the moment that he turned around he realized that that wasn’t quite true. 

When he turned around he found someone else lying in the bed that he had just vacated. Blonde hair with brown roots lay haphazardly across a pale forehead that had a bandage taped to its temple. Long brown eyelashes lay limply against the pale cheekbones, framed with a clear tube running across cheeks and tucked behind ears. The pale hospital gown with tiny blue polka dots made the skin look pale and pasty and so paper thin that Niall swore he could see the blood moving underneath it. Wires were hooked into the pale skin, some emerging from underneath the gown and others plugged into veins with small pieces of tape. Hands rested on top of the thin blue blanket draped over the body. The left hand was laying palm up with another wire clamped onto the index finger and on the wrist was a tattoo in the shape of a four-leafed clover, which was funny because Niall had that exact same tattoo. He’d gotten it one night when he was too drunk to think rationally, was suffering from a bit of homesickness, and Harry had just happened to have a tattoo gun with him.

And Niall froze.

Because he was staring at his own body.

He blinked…and then blinked again. His hand hovered over the body on the bed (the body that was definitely not his) and touched the cheek gently. Nothing. He felt nothing. His body felt like he had taken a bath in Novocain and then popped a Vicodin just to be on the safe side. 

Shit.

He must be dead.

Right?

Just then a nurse rushed into the room. Niall expected her to run screaming about a ghost, but she didn’t even flinch. In fact she didn’t even see him as she stepped up to the machines and started writing on her notepad.

Niall cleared his throat and stepped towards her. “Excuse me? Ma’am?” 

When he failed to get a response he cleared his throat again and spoke louder. “Excuse me, but could you explain what’s going on?”

The nurse still didn’t respond. She frowned slightly at some of the fluorescent green numbers on one of the screens before turning to his body that lay on the bed. She gently patted his shoulder before saying, “You hang in there love,” just as the door to the room swung open again.

Liam walked in with his cellphone clutched tight in his hand. Niall was relieved to see that, besides a bruise on his face, Liam looked fine, at least physically. His eyes were lined with dark circles and were red and puffy. His shoulders were hunched tightly under the white shirt, the same one he had been wearing during the car ride, so Niall assumed it hadn’t been that long since the accident.

When Liam noticed the nurse standing by the bed his eyes widened and his head shot up. “Is he okay? I only went answer the phone; I didn’t want to disturb him. Please tell me he’s still all right.”

“His condition hasn’t changed sir. There’ll be a nurse checking on him every thirty minutes. It’s just routine.”

Liam seemed to deflate at that and he nodded before shuffling over to the chair that sat on the other side of the bed.

The nurse smiled kindly at him before turning and heading for the door, nearly running into Niall in the process. Right before she left she turned around and looked at Liam. “You know, it’s up to you of course, but I find that sometimes talking to them helps.”

“Talking?” Liam questioned, looking up tiredly from where he had been squinting at his phone.

“Yup, just about everything. There’s no proof, and everybody’s always got a different opinion, but I’ve always believed that some part of them can hear us when we talk. So talk to him. About the latest footie game or the latest prank that you pulled or the new girlfriend. It doesn’t matter, whatever makes you feel better. I’m sure he’d be happy to hear. Give him something to fight to come back to.”

“I’m – I’m not sure that he wants to hear anything I have to say.” Liam looked like he was holding back tears as he spoke and Niall felt his heart beat painfully at that look.

He stepped around the bed and set a hand on Liam’s arm. “Li, mate, if you can hear me. I’ll always listen to what you have to say.”

Liam didn’t react to either the words or Niall’s touch so Niall withdrew to the back of the room, blinking back tears and listening silently as the nurse responded.

“Hmmm what would he say if he heard you say that?”

“He’d call me a wanker and then tell me that he would always listen to me.”

The nurse smiled softly. “Sounds like you should listen to him. He sounds like a lovely guy.”

“He is. He really is,” Liam smiled softly and reached out to tangle his in fingers in Niall’s limp hand.

Niall shivered at the sensation of a ghost like tingle vibrating through his right hand and he suddenly wished that he could feel, really feel, Liam’s hand, because Liam was one of the only people who could calm Niall down when he started to panic, and boy was he panicking now.

Niall didn’t even realize that the nurse had left until Liam started speaking.

“Niall, I, umm, I guess I hope you can hear me? I just…I need…need you to come back and all. I know things have been tough recently. I know you’ve been stressed, you always leave your hair down when you are, and you haven’t worn it up in weeks. And I know that you’ve been paying attention to the hate. I’m not sure why because you are so amazing and talented and gorgeous and what those girls say really shouldn’t matter, but it does to you. Thinking back now I wish I’d done something, taken your phone or at least talked with you about it, because you were upset, and I didn’t do anything to help. I was such an idiot. And then….there’s been us. I know I’ve been a right prat about it, I’ve been so horrible to you and I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me.”

And now Niall is literally beating his head against a wall, wishing that he could feel it because he needs to talk to Liam, needs to tell him to shut up because he would never hate him, but he can’t so instead he sits on the side of the bed next to Liam and just listens.

“But I’ve just been…scared, I guess. I mean what if I fuck this up? The band, we’d, our friendship, it would never be the same. Can I risk that? That’s my life and I’m terrified that I’ll fuck everything up. But Niall, if you just, just come back, keep fighting, don’t give up, and when you wake up. I’ll try, we’ll try, because, because fuck Niall I don’t think I’m going to be okay if you don’t make it. I think…I think – “

Liam stops as the door swings open violently and Niall loves his band mates, but right now he’s cursing their timing, because he thinks Liam might’ve been about to say those three words, but now he’s dropped Niall’s hand and is standing up. 

Louis, Zayn, and Harry all stumble into the room with terror written all over their faces. The minute they see Liam they’re a pile of limbs and crying faces and Niall almost feels jealous. And then he feels guilty because he’s the reason their crying, he’s the reason that they need comfort.  
\--------------------------------------------

Niall stared blankly at the wall at the end of the room.

He was sitting on the end of the hospital bed in the dark. It had been hours since the rest of his band mates had gotten to the hospital. The day had passed in a blur of nurses, doctors, and endless chatter. 

The boys had talked all day about anything and everything. After living with them for two years Niall knew that it was just their way of coping with…everything.  
As the day had progressed the faces of the nurses who came to check in on him every thirty minutes had progressively gotten less and less hopeful. Their eyes always flicked over the machines hooked up to his body and then their eyes would dim a little at the numbers that they read.

Niall could feel his body weakening, it sapped at his energy and by the time that his friends had all fallen asleep late in the night he hadn’t had the energy to move from where he sat on the edge of the bed. 

When Harry, Zayn, and Louis had first arrived they had wanted to know everything, so Liam had told them. He had told them that they were hit by a drunk driver. That the driver got away with nothing more than a black eye. He told them that he was fine, just a mild concussion. And he had cried when he had told them that Niall’s spleen had ruptured, one of his broken ribs had punctured his kidney, and a piece of broken windshield had lacerated his side. The doctors didn’t know if he would make it.

Niall looked around at the room, at the blinking machines, his still body, and his sleeping band mates. 

He smiled softly at the sight of Zayn leaning on Harry, snoring quietly. At Harry curled up with his head resting on Zayn’s and his feet in Louis’ lap. At Louis, with his head hanging awkwardly backwards, one arm resting across Harry’s back and the other circling Liam’s shoulders. At Liam, body curled into a tight ball and nestled closely against Louis. 

He thought that, maybe, if he was gone, someday they would be okay. As long as they had each other, they would recover. Maybe One Direction wouldn’t exist anymore, but all that really mattered was that his friends were happy.

He startled as someone cleared their throat. His head snapped around and he looked at the rather dumpy, short old man that stood in front of him. He wore a green janitor’s suit with a name tag that read “Gabe”. His short grey hair sprouted in small little tufts from his head and his little eyes scrunched up warmly as he looked at Niall, who couldn’t help but feel a little more hopeful, even if the man couldn’t see him.

“Well? Aren’t you going to at least say hello?” The man asked, smiling gently at the blonde boy.

Niall jerked in surprise and his mouth opened and closed several times before he could manage to blurt out a response. “You can see me?”

“Lad, it’s kind of my job to see you.”

Niall paused, his brow wrinkling as he struggled to understand the man’s response. “Umm okay? So you’re like a ghost hunter or something?”

Instead of answering his question the old man moved closer and looked carefully between Niall and Liam. “He loves you, you know?”

“I…excuse me?” Niall blushed as he spoke.

“He loves you. It’s actually quite beautiful. What you two have.” The man looked regretfully between the two teens before opening his mouth to continue, but he was stopped by the entrance of another man.

This man was middle aged with shaggy black hair, glowing tan skin, and piercing brown eyes. He wore a black suit with a white shirt and a blood red tie. All in all he looked like he had just come from a wedding, or a funeral.

“Just ignore him. He’s just an old sap,” he said, looking at Niall closely as if he was examining a coveted object.

“Luke.”

“Gabe.”

The two greeted each other like old enemies and Niall shivered as animosity sparked between them.

The man in the suit, Luke, looked over at Niall and said lightly, “All right mate? Looking a little pale.”

“I – I just. Who are you?”

“Yes, yes, I was getting there before I was so rudely interrupted,” the old man, Gabe, said, shooting a glare over at Luke. “The name’s Gabriel, and well, to put it bluntly I’m an angel.”

Niall blinked, but nodded wearily, figuring the day couldn’t get any weirder then it already had. His mind slowly worked out the consequences and he paled as he came to a realization. “This is it, isn’t it? I’m dying.” He looked over to his body as he spoke and he realized that his body already looked like a corpse, pale white and still as death. Tears pricked his eyes as he looked back at the two men.

“Yup,” this time it was Luke who spoke to Niall, looking far too happy for Niall’s liking.

“What are you even doing here Luke? You know this boy’s marked for heaven. You don’t belong here,” Gabriel looked angry as he spoke and for a moment his eyes seemed to glow with a golden light so bright his sent stars flashing through Niall’s vision.

“Actually, I have an offer that might interest our boy here,” Luke spoke, turning to fully face Niall for the first time since he’d arrived. “So here’s the deal. I can offer you a chance to live.”

“What’s the catch,” was Niall’s immediate response.

“Ahh well. Gabie here seems convince that that boy over there loves you. I disagree. So I’ll give you two minutes to get him to tell you that he loves you. After all, if he truly loved you the first thing he’d want to tell you after you came out of a coma was that he loved you right? If he says it, you get to live, no catch. If you lose you come to live with me instead of up with dear Father.”

“And what if I don’t want to play your game?”

“Then you die, now. And you’ll go to heaven, but you might not ever see lover boy again. Between you and me I have a gift for the future and I can tell you that he doesn’t do so well once you’re gone.”

Niall has a glimpse of a Liam covered in tattoos and piercings with a bottle of pills in his pocket and a beer in his hand. The look in Liam’s eyes sends chills down Niall’s back. Those brown eyes that had once held such warmth and life now looked dead and blank.

Niall gasped as he came back to the present to see Luke smiling coyly at him and Gabriel switching between shooting death glares at the sides of Luke’s head and smiling softly at Niall.

“That’s – that’s what happens? If I…die?”

Luke shrugged in response. “It’s a possibility.”

“Then I agree to the deal.”

“Niall, wait.” Gabriel protests, eyes widening in alarm. “Whatever he showed you. It’s just a possibility. That might not happen. And if you…lose. You’ll never see Liam again and you’ll have to live forever in hell. Be careful, think this through.”

“Tick, tock.” 

Both Niall and Gabriel shoot a glare at Luke, but that doesn’t change the fact that Niall can feels his body slowing down, can hear the beeping of monitor changing pattern to a much slower beat, like that of a love song. He knows he doesn’t have much time. He thinks of fire and lava and screaming and pain. And then he thinks of Liam. And knows that there’s really no decision to make.

“Let’s do this.”

“Remember two minutes,” is all he hears before suddenly everything is black. His senses come rushing back to him and he gasps at the fierce ache that’s engulfed his body. Every little movement feels like stabbing himself with nails, but he opens his eyes. Two minutes left.

2:00

He looks over at the pile of bodies too his left. “Liam.” His voice is rough and painful after everything that his body has been through. “Liam,” he says louder, but the brunette doesn’t stir. Niall can practically feel the seconds ticking down and he’s about to have a panic attack when the water bottle nestled next to Liam suddenly tips over and the cap rolls off, spilling water all over Liam’s lap.

1:30

Niall thinks he catches a glimpse of Gabriel’s wide grin, but he’s not sure because he’s calling out to his friend who startled awake at the feeling of the cold water. “Liam.”

This time Liam hears him and his head snaps up. He stares in shock for a moment before he’s scrambling over to Niall’s bed. 

1:15

Liam pulls him into a hug that sends aching pains lancing through Niall’s body, but the blonde does his best to return the gesture through the maze of wires and iv lines hooked up to him. There’s a wet patch growing on his shoulder where Liam’s head is nestled and there’s a constant stream of words pouring from Liam’s mouth.

“Niall, oh thank god. Never again. Don’t you ever do that again. I’m so sorry baby. Please forgive me. This is my fault. You’re so incredible. Everything’s going to be okay.”

0:30

Niall’s heartbeat picks up slightly at the endearments falling from Liam’s lips, but they’re not the words he needs to hear. He tilts his head into Liam’s and whispers, “Liam. Shhh, its okay. Liam, I love you.”

And Liam pulls back slightly to look at Niall’s face. He studies Niall’s expression for a moment tears still dripping down his face and Niall’s getting desperate. 

0:15

“Liam please say something, tell me…tell me that you love me.” Niall feels terrible for pushing Liam, for making him say something he’s obviously not ready to say, but he’s desperate because he’s scared. Scared of going to hell, of burning in oblivion for decades and centuries and whatever the hell is longer than centuries and the thought of doing that without ever seeing Liam again is….terrifying.

0:05

Liam opens his mouth and is about to say something when a nurse rushes in. 

0:01

It’s just a moment that Liam looks away, but that’s it, that’s all it took. 

0:00

Niall could faintly hear Luke’s victorious laugh as Niall’s body convulses in Liam’s grasp. He’s fading and he can faintly hear screaming and he’s not sure whose it is, but its bloody annoying, that is until he hears Liam’s voice screaming the three words that matter the most. “I love you. Fuck Niall, no don’t do this. I love you. I bloody love you. You can’t leave me. Don’t you dare. I love you, you hear me? You aren’t allowed to cop out on this. You can’t leave me. Please Niall, no!”

Liam’s voice fades and his comforting weight leaves Niall’s side. Niall opens his eyes briefly to see a nurse pulling back a frantic Liam, before Niall’s surrounded by white coats and blue masks and somebodies shining a light in his eyes and there this incessant beep that just keeps going on and on and on and he finally just lets it all go.

He stops fighting. 

He gives up. 

And then there’s fire coursing through him, like electricity, jumping from nerve to nerve and leaving nothing but ashes in its wake. Niall wonders if this is what hell feels like, and he doesn’t think he can handle a century of this. And then the pain fades. There’s a jumble of voices from very far away and then just like that the pain is back, only this time it’s hotter, burning with a white intensity that seems to gather in Niall’s chest. The pain is so hot that it pulses; setting up a rhythm that slowly draws him back from the ledge that he’d thrown himself off of.

The pain starts to fade, dulling to an ache that simply joins in with the rest of his aches, but the pulse remains, beating steady inside him and it takes him a while to realize that it’s his heartbeat.

He’s confused because dead people don’t have heartbeats, and he knows that he lost the deal. He should be dead and burning in hell. But. He’s not.  
So he opens his eyes slowly. He’s surrounded by white again, only this time it’s the white coats of the doctors. As soon as he opens his eyes their bombarding him with questions.

“Mr. Horan, can you hear me?”

“How are you feeling Mr. Horan?” (Stupid question Niall thinks considering he’s fairly certain that they just electrocuted him.)

“Mr. Horan can you feel this?”

And Niall just wants them all to shut up, because he’s exhausted (you’d be surprised how tiring nearly dying is) and he’s a little upset and very confused.  
He’s just about to close his eyes, curl up into a ball, and pretend there’s nobody else in the room when suddenly there’s a break in the white.  
Liam’s there, pushing through the doctor’s, telling them to back off. 

He leans over Niall and pulls his face close. 

He blinks tears out of his eyes when Niall smiles at his touch. 

He leans down and begins to press soft, light kisses all over Niall’s face. Each time he leaves a kiss he whispers, “I love you.” Over and over again until it’s a running mantra in Niall’s mind. Each kiss, each word, puts a little bit more life back into Niall’s body and he smiles into the kiss that Liam finally presses to his lips.

Somewhere in the background there’s an angel laughing loudly and a demon with smoke coming out of his ears, but Niall just can’t bring himself to care. There’s a whisper of “the power of love my dear” and Niall smiles just a little bit wider because he’s in love.

Without lifting his lips from Niall’s Liam whispers, “I love you,” pushing the words deep into Niall’s mouth until he can taste the love and kindness and worry and passion infused into every single syllable.

Niall thinks he’ll never get tired of hearing those three words.


End file.
